D&D (2024) How D&D Beyond Will Handle Access To 2014 Rules

D&D Beyond has announced how the transition to the new 2024 edition will work on the platform, and how legacy access to the 2014 version of D&D will be implemented.

• You will still be able to access the 2014 Basic Rules and core rulebooks.
• You will still be able to make characters using the 2014 Player's Handbook.
• Existing home-brew content will not be impacted.
• These 2014 rules will be accessible and will be marked with a 'legacy' badge: classes, subclasses, species, backgrounds, feats, monsters.
• Tooltips will reflect the 2024 rules.
• Monster stat blocks will be updated to 2024.
• There will be terminology changes (Heroic Inspiration, Species, etc.)

D&D (2024) - Wizards of the Coast Backtracks on D&D Beyond and 2014 Content

Wizards of the Coast posted an overnight update stating that they are not going forward with previously released plans to require those wishing to use some 2014 content on D&D Beyond to use the Homebrew function to manually enter it. Instead, all the content including spells and magic items will...

www.enworld.org

 

[SkidAce]

Change 5e to 5e compatible and I’m good

Change 5e to 5e compatible and we are good here too.

No one here is saying 5e compatible is ‘lesser than 5e’.

@FrogReaver says it clearer than I did, I think.

 

[Chaosmancer]

What does it hurt or diminish to consider D&D 2014 and D&D 2024 5e compatible systems alongside Tales of the Valiant, Level Up Advanced 5e, and others?

For me personally? It is firstly inaccurate. I keep doing the substitution for a reason. Saying that D&D 5th edition is merely a subset of D&D 5th edition which is larger than D&D 5th edition because there are D&D 5th edition compatible products is practically a word salad and makes no sense.

Secondly, it means that the only things that matter are sold products that make money. Level up was being sold in 2021. Tales of the Valiant was 2023. The SRD you are referencing? 5.1? That was released in 2016. But by your arguments, but it being the SRD that matters, and by being after Level Up and other products were released... none of that mattered. None of that had an impact. HeavyArms Alchemy book? You don't care that didn't change anything for DnD. The Dark Arts compendium by Jonoman3000? Didn't make a difference. Nemeia's Tome, Dawnforged Cast, The Deep Magic series... none of this changed anything to your mind. At the point those products were being produced, used, and distributed it was still DnD 5e to you... but once Level Up happened, THEN 5e was separated from DnD 5e. Once someone else was making money, instead of it being a passion project being shared for free, THEN it mattered and altered things.

Your argument is focused on profit and notoriety it seems, not on providing different rules. Because different rules were ALWAYS being provided, so nothing actually ever changed.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Because we can recognize the incredible breadth and diversity of 5e products published from hundreds of publishers. We can mix and mash up the best ideas for the game we want to run. We don't have to hope a single company goes the direction we want them to go – we can take ideas from lots of different publishers with different philosophies and choose what we want.

This was always true. I didn't need Morrus or Kobold Press or anyone else to publish a new set of core rulebooks and sell them for a profit for this to be true. Why are you acting like this is some sort of new paradigm that did not exist before?

Just look at monsters alone. We have the original D&D 2014 Monster Manual. We have A5e's Monstrous Menagerie which adds knowledge checks, loot parcels, related monster encounters, and more streamlined baseline monster math. We have MCDM's Flee Mortals with crunchy tactical 4e-ish style monsters for 5e. We have Forge of Foes which offers simple improvised monsters enriched with custom monster powers. We have the Monster Vault with streamlined but super-sharp-teethed versions of core monsters. You might like some of these. You might hate some of these. But you have lots of options to choose from. That's fantastic.

The same is true with character options, GM guides, campaign sourcebooks, published adventures, and a slew of supplements.

If we treat all of this stuff as "lesser" than the core D&D 2014 books, we're really missing out. Because they're not.

Who has ever said it is lesser? I certainly have never said it was lesser. Why do you think that?

Do you want to know the strongest memory I have of the DnD Next playtest in 2013? It was sitting at my computer, laughing, because I had just spent a good few hours homebrewing some goblins. I was homebrewing them because I have a disdain for DnD goblins as they are normally depicted. And after all that work, I opened the next playtest packet for DnD Next, which would eventually become DnD 5e.... and there was the goblin, and it had the EXACT same special abilities I had just given my goblin.

My version still has better hp and better mental stats that the DnD 5e goblin. But I have never considered monsters created by anyone anywhere for DnD 5e to be "lesser" than WotC's, unless they were poorly made. Then they were lesser designs compared to better designs. But I was doing this, working within this paradigm since 2013, before the SRD, before DnD 5e, before any of the products you are lauding as being so revolutionary.

And some of the best monster designs I've found? From Reddit posts.

You are beating a drum for revolution, and we are wandering around the marketplace, having been doing what you are proposing for over a decade.

 

[mamba]

Change 5e to 5e compatible and I’m good

what is the difference between a 5e product and a 5e compatible product?

That is not just directed at you, clearly there are others who see a distinction too, I am not sure what it is

 

[mamba]

there are D&D 5th edition compatible products is practically a word salad and makes no sense.

it makes perfect sense to me, but I do not see why you would have to write it like that

 

[Chaosmancer]

they are predominantly replacements that are compatible with all the 5e supplements rather than a second set of mostly similar races, classes and subclasses, and spells that are intended to be added to the D&D PHB ones

If you want to emphasize their compatibility, be my guest, to me they are intended as replacements / alternatives and not as additions

Of course they replace the rules they are meant to replace. Llaser Llama's Fighter replaces the 2014 PHB fighter, that is the point of it. But I find it interesting, they are supposed to be replacements compatible with the 5e supplements? So they are alternative rules for Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition that are still compatible with Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition supplements. Like any other sets of alternative or optional rules then.

 

[Micah Sweet]

For me personally? It is firstly inaccurate. I keep doing the substitution for a reason. Saying that D&D 5th edition is merely a subset of D&D 5th edition which is larger than D&D 5th edition because there are D&D 5th edition compatible products is practically a word salad and makes no sense.

Secondly, it means that the only things that matter are sold products that make money. Level up was being sold in 2021. Tales of the Valiant was 2023. The SRD you are referencing? 5.1? That was released in 2016. But by your arguments, but it being the SRD that matters, and by being after Level Up and other products were released... none of that mattered. None of that had an impact. HeavyArms Alchemy book? You don't care that didn't change anything for DnD. The Dark Arts compendium by Jonoman3000? Didn't make a difference. Nemeia's Tome, Dawnforged Cast, The Deep Magic series... none of this changed anything to your mind. At the point those products were being produced, used, and distributed it was still DnD 5e to you... but once Level Up happened, THEN 5e was separated from DnD 5e. Once someone else was making money, instead of it being a passion project being shared for free, THEN it mattered and altered things.

Your argument is focused on profit and notoriety it seems, not on providing different rules. Because different rules were ALWAYS being provided, so nothing actually ever changed.

I feel like things did change once there was a 5e game available to wholesale replace WotC's version of 5e, yes. It certainly mattered to me; I joined up as soon as I learned what Level Up's intentions as a system were.

 

[mamba]

This was always true. I didn't need Morrus or Kobold Press or anyone else to publish a new set of core rulebooks and sell them for a profit for this to be true.

what did you use those books with before A5e and ToV came along?

The fact that there are alternative core books is expanding the 5e universe in a way additional monsters or adventures do not. The closest thing to that is probably Valda

 

[Chaosmancer]

they are compatible with the 5e standard, they are intended as replacements to the D&D PHB, not as something to be used alongside it

Replacing rules in the PHB is not new.

that no one can build on D&D 5e while everyone can build on the 5e SRD is very much true.

No, that is very much false.

You can also build a rather similar system independently, agreed, but if you copy over anything, it either is from the SRD or a copyright violation…

You can only have a copyright violation if you are attempting to sell a product. You cannot violate copyright by making something related to a product, and giving it to people for free. And that is even assuming that things like game mechanics CAN be copyrighted. Sure, maybe if I put up a complete reproduction of the 2014 Fighter class on the internet, that may violate copyright, but making a fighter subclass certainly does not.

the DMsG has its own license, you pay WotC for the privilege to use their IP beyond the SRD. Didn’t realize that saying ‘no one else can use’ needed to include ‘without a separate license’ but I guess here we are.

So, are those people creating for 5e or 5e DnD? What is the difference?

no, I said the 5e is a reference to the 5e of D&D 5e and that the two started out as largely the same since D&D was the only implementation of the 5e SRD. Since we now have several implementations of it, the scope of what 5e means has expanded while the scope of D&D 5e has not (and before you try to score a cheap point by pointing out the obvious again, that means it consists of WotC products, Xanathar, Tasha, etc have expanded D&D 5e…)

But you are again factually incorrect. DnD 5e's scope was changing before any of these other "compatible" games were being made. WotC is not the only people who can expand the scope of 5e. They were the only people allowed to SELL those products.

 

[Chaosmancer]

I feel like things did change once there was a 5e game available to wholesale replace WotC's version of 5e, yes. It certainly mattered to me; I joined up as soon as I learned what Level Up's intentions as a system were.

So you are saying that none of the people who produced anything else altered DnD 5e in anyway before you found a way to stop giving WoTC money?